German minister commits suicide after 'coronavirus crisis worries'

German minister commits suicide after ‘coronavirus crisis worries’

Author: News Desk

Thomas Schaefer, the finance minister of Germany’s Hesse state, has committed suicide apparently after becoming “deeply worried” over how to cope with the economic fallout from the coronavirus, state premier Volker Bouffier said on Sunday.

Schaefer, 54, was found dead near a railway track on Saturday. The Wiesbaden prosecution’s office said they believe he died by suicide.

“We are in shock, we are in disbelief and above all we are immensely sad,” Bouffier said in a recorded statement.

Hesse is home to Germany’s financial capital Frankfurt, where major lenders like Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank have their headquarters. The European Central Bank is also located in Frankfurt.

A visibly shaken Bouffier recalled that Schaefer, who was Hesse’s finance chief for 10 years, had been working “day and night” to help companies and workers deal with the economic impact of the pandemic.

“Today we have to assume that he was deeply worried,” said Bouffier, a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“It’s precisely during this difficult time that we would have needed someone like him,” he added.

Popular and well-respected, Schaefer had long been touted as a possible successor to Bouffier.

Like Bouffier, Schaefer belonged to Merkel’s centre-right CDU party. He leaves behind a wife and two children.

Meanwhile, Spanish Princess Maria Teresa of Bourbon-Parma has become the first royal who passed away from the novel coronavirus after her death was reported on Sunday.

The 86-year-old princess was the cousin of Spanish King Felipe VI. Her brother, the Duke of Aranjuez, announced her death via a Facebook post. Her funeral will be held on Friday in Madrid. “On this afternoon… our sister Maria Teresa de Borbon Parma and Borbon Busset, a victim of the coronavirus COVID-19, died in Paris at the age of eighty-six,” read the post. Born on July 28, 1933, Theresa became a professor at Paris’ Sorbonne as well as a professor of sociology at Madrid’s Complutense University. Known for her activism and views, she was dubbed as the “Red Princess”.